Fickle
by 14ismyluckynumber
Summary: One shot for Unseen Wonders! He was never fickle; as she thought, because when it came to her his heart was solid as a stone. He craved her when he wasn't with her, loved for the touch that sent his veins ablaze. He needed her.


He watched her like a predator from his place on the sheets, his hungry grey eyes stalking over her tan skin as she gazed out of the window where the early dawn was starting it's ascent over the rolling hills outside their window. Her head was almost bowed, the cashmere jumper clothing the arms he touched so gently, the white sweat pants soft to skim across with his scarred fingertips.

Nobody could know she was alive, he knew that.

But it didn't stop him claiming his property each night, always retreating to the shadows in the broken windmill out on the plains between One and Two, where she lived.

Didn't stop him tracing patterns on her silky skin, didn't stop him kissing her neck as her breath tickled his head.

He remembered watching Katniss as she sang to the little girl, who he knew wasn't just TWELVE mentally, and monitoring the slight shift of her limbs after her eyes had closed and her chest had stopped rising.

He recalled leaning in to the television screen, his eyes narrowing as he glared at the tiny movement, almost unnoticeable, telling that her lungs were still moving.

He had WATCHED her subtly dodge the spear, so it grazed her side, deeply, but missing the fatal spot on her stomach.

I'm hard to catch. And if they can't catch me, they can't kill me.

Her words twisted and shifted his mind, as he raced through the underground tunnels in the Capitol, searching for triggers and weaknesses the rebellion could maximise on.

What he didn't expect was to find her life form in the rusted aluminium hallway, the slow drip of cavernous dew staining both their clothes and imaginations. She told him the story of how she escaped, but the wound was bleeding so much, that the undertaker dragging her supposedly lifeless body along with Cato's and the other dead tributes over to the funeral pyre took pity and realised what she was, how she lived. He saved her, by taking her to a scientist friend working secretly for the Capitol.

Her mind they could save, but her body was damaged badly . They altered her, making her older, her body aged and healed.

Technically, now she was nineteen.

They said she would still really be twelve, but he knew a five year old's mentality is that of a twelve year olds when you grow up in Panem. A twelve year old thinks like a fifty year old. They later revealed to them both that her mind had grown to that of a nineteen year old's as well.

He knew she was ready.

He saved her, stole her away, and they ran together, free as an elk and light as a weed, as they scouted a place for her to live.

When they stumbled upon the windmill, she was still shaking in her mind and her soul, and coaxed him in along the dark halls, and passion and tension exploded and ignited like a inferno between them, tainting their bodies with uncontrollable heat that they had strived to keep in during the month or so they had hid. She grabbed his t-shirt and whispered un-angelically to him, and his warm breath made her shiver, smooth oxygen fluttering across her bare collarbone as she let herself seep into him, their freedom and personalities interlocking in a tremendous storm that lit them alive, made them feel something other than cold, sterile numbness. Her hands threaded themselves through his umber hair, and he bit her lip, pulling her closer and closer, because he knew no touch would ever quench the burning thirst for her that screamed like a wild animal inside him. Lightning crackled with each interaction, each touch, each chaste, dry kiss. He stumbled through the gloomy broken corridors of the house, tripping on foreign objects as he clung to her legs which were wrapped round his waist, trying to find somewhere that didn't just have bare floor. He smelt like rust, and she wanted to lose herself in the complete wholeness he gave her.

She was led to believe he was in love with Katniss, but his heart was never fickle when it came to her. He craved her moth wing touch and her honey sweet breath on his earlobe, the nothings that she whispered to him as he completed her. He longed for afterwards, after the burning incense that ensnared both their bodies in its incredibly passionate romance, where they would lay on the faded, crinkled mattress with the spring by her feet, tangled in he crumpled cream sheets. Her face illuminated in the deep blue midnight, the scarce stars dancing on her sharp cheekbones. His fingers entwined in hers, held above each other, as they would rant and chatter about dreams and phases and wishes. He wanted the soft kiss that she would grace on his cheek before he left to work, always classy during the day not even more than that slight brush of lips on skin, nothing more, no matter the extent of the flame they would have encountered the previous night. She would tell him to return, always scared even though the world was changed now.

"Rue?" he asked, his voice hoarse and older than his time as he lay back on the bed, the sheets tangled around him, only reaching to his torso, which was exposed in all it's tones, tanned glory. She half turned, those lash rimmed ginger/bronze eyes filling his own slate ones with their memories, her sleek black hair tumbling down her petite shoulders as she moved, a straight waterfall of sable curls, no nap or frizz left in their waves.

"Yes, Gale?" her voice was like candy to his ears, smooth, dusky and feminine, vulnerability lurking in its depths.

"Marry me." He stated, not asked, leaning forward on his elbows against the rumpled duvet, eyebrow raised as he anticipated her sarcastic retort. She gave none.

He would have expected her to question his motives or laugh in his face, or do SOMETHING other than what she did.

"Yes." she whispered, turning her head back to the crescendo of peach and apricot and the high arcs of the palest pearl that was the aching dawn. He crept forward, like a stealthy tiger, wrapping his strong arms around her waist as he leant his head on her shoulder, kissing the side of her neck softly. She was too busy staring at something he couldn't see to notice, which he thought was perfect for the element of surprise, when he pulled her back, supporting her with strong arms, her high laughs piercing the cold airspace, before he lay down, leaving her free to go, equally horizontal at his side. She did not move away, but shuffled closer to his warmth, and he turned to face her, enveloping her in his endowed arms.

"I love you." she told him, staring at him in a way that sped up his heart, the beats straining against his constrictive rib cage.

"I love you too, Mrs Hawthorn."


End file.
